Adieu Ely HouseBryn Mawr ... Implacable March weather. As much mud in the streets, as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus biting chunks out of Ely House. The opening lines of Dickens' Bleak House came to mind as startled onlookers watched the historic building being torn down on March 2. By day's end, there was nothing left but bare ground.

Ely was slated to be renovated for a new multicultural center, but the Philadelphia engineering firm of Keast and Hood Co., retained to evaluate the structure last year by architect Richard W. Thom, determined that it was unsound.

Keast and Hood Co. concluded that the building's interior floors and attic would need to be gutted completely in order to bring it to code requirements, let alone continue to stand, as it could have become unsafe even to walk past. "That would have left Ely a 'Disney structure' with almost nothing remaining of the original material but the rubble walls," said Assistant Director of Planning and Projects Christopher Gluesing. "And as it was, its origins as a barn had been almost completely obliterated by yea
rs of additions and alterations."

After numerous meetings and discussions, Trustees of the College voted in December to demolish the building. "No one really wanted to see it torn down," said Suzanne Pentz, Director of Historic Structures at Keast and Hood Co., who prepared the evaluation report and testified before the Lower Merion Historical Commission. "Certainly I did not go into this advocating demolition, but I think Bryn Mawr made the right decision."

"Suzanne is the best person in Philadelphia we possibly could have had to evaluate the situation and to go before the historical commission," Gluesing said. "Because of her experience, we and they are comforted that we did the right thing." The College also asked George E. Thomas, Ph.D., of George E. Thomas Associates, Inc., to evaluate the role of Ely House as a historical resource in the context of nearby buildings. Thomas concluded that largely because of the damage done to its structural and historical
integrity during a 1926 remodeling, "its loss would not be significant in the building inventory of Lower Merion Township." The historical commission's ruling to permit demolition was upheld by the full Lower Merion Board of Commissioners.

The east part of Ely, thought to have been built in 1775, was the barn of an estate belonging to Thomas and Patience Morgan, now known as Wyndham House. Probably used first as a stable, it was enlarged towards the end of the 1800s.

In 1895, the main house was purchased by Theodore M. Ely, a vice president of the Pennsylvania Railroad. In 1926, his daughter, the extraordinary Gertrude Sumner Ely, Class of 1899, gave Wyndham and its seven acres to the College, but kept the barn, which was remodeled into a dwelling house for her. For many alumnae, Miss Ely's was a second home and salon where, as students, they met world figures. She worked ardently and extensively in international affairs and relief, na
tional politics, women's rights an
d the civil rights movement. After her death in 1970, the building was used as the Deanery, Russian House, and most recently for Admissions until its move last fall to the new Benham Gateway Building.

Typical of barns, the original structure did not have a ridge beam, and most of the necessary supports in the roof were missing as well as the original two-story barn posts. The building also had no foundation, sitting on earth. "It took some time to figure out what was going on as so much was covered up by finishes," Pentz said. "It is amazing that other than some bowing of roof and wall, we saw no cosmetic signs of the structural problems," Gluesing said.

He said that the demolition itself was an opportunity to learn more about the original construction. The area will be landscaped and include a memorial plaque about the early history of the site. Stapleton House on Faculty Row is now being renovated to house the multicultural center.